Makin laughed contemptuously. “And I told you, Strang, that I’m dealing myself in on this jewel racket of yours.”
“You’re not muscling in on anything, Makin, except big trouble.”
Again Makin laughed. “You’re the one who’s got trouble. After you learned Fenton Hardy was on your case, a pal of mine in Chicago found out he was there. I asked my pal to tip off Hardy about the Haley Building job. How did I know about it? I overheard you blokes talking after you cased Tiffman’s office. And there’ll be more tip-offs if I don’t collect a share on every jewel haul you make from now on. I want to know what your blackout gimmick is, too.”
“What’s he talking about?” Professor Darrow asked Strang. “What does he mean by ‘every jewel haul you make’?”
“Get back up to your lab, Professor!” Strang ordered roughly. “This man is another foreign agent—he’s simply trying to pull the wool over your eyes. I’ll handle him!”
Darrow obeyed meekly, but he looked bewildered as he started up the steps. Frank and Joe shrank back into the shadows. Darrow reached the top of the stairs and turned toward his laboratory without noticing them.
Meanwhile, Makin had resumed his sneering argument with Strang. “I mean business!”
“Shut up!” Strang exploded. “We know you conked Waxie at the airport and swiped those amethysts from my car—but it’s the last trick you’ll pull, Makin! Take him to our ‘guest room,’ boys. I’ll attend to him later, after we find the other kid!”
They herded Makin off toward the rear of the house. Frank and Joe tiptoed cautiously down the stairs, hoping to make a break through the front door.
But suddenly Darrow called from his laboratory, “That boy we left in here—he’s gone!”
With a snarl of rage, Strang came charging back into the front hall toward the stairway. Before the Hardys could retreat, he had spotted them!
CHAPTER XIX
Jewel Cache
FRANK and Joe ran wildly up the steps, two at a time—then fled down the corridor to their right, away from the laboratory. Below, Strang had just gained the stairway and was starting up in pursuit, bellowing to his men for help.
Selecting a room at random, Joe flung open the door and the boys darted through, slamming the door behind them. Here, too, the rooms seemed to interconnect in mazelike fashion.
“Good thing Perth built such a crazy house!” Frank panted, as they darted from one room to another.
The pounding footsteps of their pursuers could be heard from various directions as if the men were spreading out. But the mansion was immense, and the boys managed to reach the back stairway and dart down to the ground floor without being seen. Joe tugged at the back door which led to a rear porch, but it refused to budge.
“They must have locked it when they were searching for us earlier—to keep us from getting out!” he muttered to Frank. The tunnel now seemed to be their best hope.
Halfway down the stairs to the basement, the boys saw A1 Hirff entering through the tunnel door. With a shout, he ran toward them. Frank and Joe fled back up the stairs. In the kitchen Frank grabbed up a garbage container and flung it toward the stair-well doorway. Then the brothers raced through a side hallway toward the front of the house.
Crash! They heard Hirff stumble over the garbage container.
A moment later an angry voice began shouting orders. It sounded like that of Strang. Steps came pounding down the front stairway, cutting off hope of escape through the front door.
“In here!” Frank urged, pausing at a room on the left. He turned the doorknob and the brothers slipped inside, went through a small room, opened another door and entered a larger chamber.
In a few moments the door to the Hardys’ hiding place was jerked open again. Noel Strang flicked a switch and glanced hastily around. “They must have made it out the front door!” he exclaimed to someone in the hallway. The light went out again, the room door was shut, and footsteps hurried off.
Frank and Joe emerged from behind the heavy window draperies. They dared not switch on their flashlights, but gradually their eyes became accustomed to the darkness.
“It’s Jerome Perth’s room,” Frank said. “The same one we saw from outside!”
“But now the floor feels solid,” Joe murmured.
Frank was frowning as he peered about the room. “Joe, do you notice anything funny about this furniture?”
“No. What?”
“Except for that chair at the desk, every single piece of furniture in the room is placed smack up against the wall—even the armchairs.”
“That is odd, Frank,” his brother murmured. “Does that suggest something to you?”
“It sure does. It suggests that the furniture may be bolted to the wall!”
Frank tried to move an armchair, the desk, and a wardrobe. None budged!
“Well, this explains one thing,” he remarked. “We know now how the furniture was able to stay suspended in mid-air when the floor wasn’t there.”
“Wasn’t there?” Joe echoed. He was examining the way in which the headboard of the bed fitted flush to the wall. He spoke over his shoulder. “You mean you think the floor of this room really does disappear?”
As Joe turned to face Frank, his elbow rubbed against some ornamental carving in the wall paneling. The next moment both Hardys gasped.
The floor was sinking straight down under their feet!
“What did you do, Joe?” Frank exclaimed.
“Search me! My elbow just brushed the wall somewhere up there by the light switch. There must be a hidden push button or something that operates this floor!”
By this time, the whole floor had descended like an elevator to basement level, carrying the boys and the unbolted desk chair with it. A familiar, musty odor came suddenly to the boys’ nostrils.
Frank turned on his flashlight and beamed it about the walls. To his right was a moldering wooden door. This was the window side of Perth’s room.
“An entrance to the tunnel!” Joe whispered.
“Did you say there’s a light switch up there by the bed?” Frank inquired.
“Yes, probably a two-way switching arrangement, so the light can be turned on or off either from the doorway or from the bed.”
“Joe, I think I can explain how Perth’s nephew was killed!” Frank said excitedly.
“How?”
“Remember, the nephew only lived in the mansion for a few days before his death. He probably never discovered the secret of this sinking floor.”
“Wouldn’t he have been curious when he saw that the furniture in his room was bolted to the walls?”
“Maybe—if he noticed. But his uncle had been a queer old cuss, anyhow. And evidently the servants didn’t know the secret of the room, either.”
“No, I guess they didn’t, if they never told about it,” Joe agreed. “But I wonder how come they never touched the switch accidentally—say while they were cleaning the wall paneling.”
Frank shrugged. “Maybe Old Man Perth told them not to clean it—or to use only a feather duster.”
“Okay, I’ll buy that. Go on.”
“We know that Nyland’s father, Karl Nyland, was snooping about the grounds the night the nephew was killed. It could be that he made a noise outside the windows, and the nephew heard him and woke up.”
Joe nodded. “Sounds reasonable. So?”
“So the nephew gropes in the dark to turn on the light switch—and in doing so, accidentally presses the floor button, but doesn’t know it.”
“Wow! I get it!” Joe blurted out. “The floor starts sinking, but since the furniture is still up there, he doesn’t realize what has happened!”
“Right. So he jumps out of bed, falls clear down to the basement, and fractures his skull, poor guy! Then later, when the servants came to investigate, the opening of the anteroom door raised the floor back to its normal level.”
“I’ll buy that.” Joe nodded. “But what if Perth had to get the floor back
up from the basement? How would he do that?”
“Easy, I think. He probably had a timer set that automatically raised the basement floor if the anteroom door was out of action.”
“Sure,” Joe agreed. “That would be a natural feature if Perth designed this setup as an emergency escape system—living in fear of his life as he did.”
“Exactly,” Frank said. “If any of his swindle victims ever forced their way into the mansion to get revenge, Perth could lower the floor to the basement and duck out through the tunnel. If the assassin actually broke into his room, he’d find it empty, the windows locked from the inside, and no trace of Old Man Perth!”
“Frank, I’ll bet you’ve solved the mystery!” Joe said enthusiastically. “Everything fits—even the nephew’s dying gasp about the floor. He was trying to tell the servants what had happened.”
“The—the floor! It’s going up!” Frank cried excitedly. “Into the tunnel—fast!”
The boys leaped out through the tunnel doorway and began making their way along the brick-walled passage to the summerhouse outlet. Frank was in the lead. They had gone about two-thirds of the way when he halted suddenly.
“Hold it, Joe!” Frank whispered. “Maybe this way out isn’t so smart after all!”
“How come?”
“Strang knows now that we got into the house through the tunnel.”
Joe gave a low groan. “Which means there may be a guard posted near the tiled floor!”
He mulled over the possibilities. “Boy, we wouldn’t have a chance to spot anybody in the dark, either. Unless we used our flashlights—which would give us away!”
The boys quickly decided the risk was too great.
“I vote we try sneaking back up the basement stairs and see if we can talk Professor Darrow into helping us,” Frank said.
“He was the one who gave us away in the first place,” Joe objected. “And he shouted to Strang that you had escaped from the lab.”
“I know, but we’d given him quite a surprise,” Frank argued. “The way he looked coming up the stairs after hearing what Makin said—well, I have a hunch he’s been doing a lot of thinking.”
“I guess we have no choice,” Joe said. Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “Say, Frank! Take a look at that brick your light’s shining on—the one that’s a little darker than the others.”
“What about it?”
“Looks to me as if the mortar is loose around it,” Joe said tensely. “Didn’t Nyland tell us that Old Man Perth boasted the partnership papers were stashed outside the mansion—in a place that anyone could get at?”
Frank gave his brother an excited look. “Give me your jackknife, Joe!”
The knife blade passed easily around all sides of the loose brick. In a moment Frank had removed it. Behind the space where the brick had been was a deep recess. It was crammed with papers and small cloth pouches!
Frank fished them out, one by one. The pouches contained a dazzling assortment of gems, cut and uncut—diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires.
There were also stock certificates, bonds, and papers relating to various business deals. Among the latter was the partnership agreement between Perth and Karl Nyland, and a map of the lode site, signed with Nyland’s name.
“Wow!” Joe muttered. “Do you suppose those jewels were Old Man Perth’s and did Strang locate this cache, as Karl Nyland Jr. thinks?”
“Nyland’s right. Strang found it and he’s also using the tunnel as a place to hide his loot till the heat’s off. One of those bags of diamonds is labeled for delivery to Paul Tiffman.”
“This would also explain about Karl Nyland’s amethysts—the ones his father brought to Perth,” Joe reasoned. “Strang found them here and decided to peddle them, since they weren’t ‘hot.’ But Makin stole them from the glove compartment of Strang’s car.”
The boys crammed their pockets with part of the loot, and stuffed the rest inside their shirts. They also took the partnership papers. Then they headed back through the tunnel to the basement.
The house was quiet. Frank and Joe wondered if the men were searching the grounds. The boys tiptoed up the back stairway to the top floor, then made their way down the corridor to the laboratory.
Professor Darrow was seated at his workbench, holding his head in his hands. He looked up with a start as the boys entered. His face was drawn and pale. To the Hardys’ relief, he showed no sign of hostility, and made no effort to call for help.
“Are you really Fenton Hardy’s sons?” he asked, then brushed aside the boys’ attempt to show him identification from their wallets. “Never mind—papers of any kind can be forged. The important thing is, I believe now that you and not Strang are telling me the truth.”
“I suppose what Duke Makin said convinced you,” Frank said quietly.
Darrow nodded listlessly. “I’ve been a terrible fool. Strang led me to believe that he would finance my work for the public good. Instead, he was only interested in using my paralyzing-ray device to commit crimes.”
“If you need any other proof,” Frank said, “we found where he had hidden the loot from his jewel thefts, and we have it all right here.”
“The main thing now,” Joe said, “is to call Dad and the police. Can I use that phone over there?”
Again Darrow nodded. “Do so, by all means.”
Joe lifted the telephone from its cradle and started to dial. Suddenly a cold, menacing laugh came over the receiver and the line went dead!
CHAPTER XX
Trapped!
JOE hung up with a gasp of dismay and turned to Frank. “Someone just broke in and cut me off!” he exclaimed. “It sounded like Strang!”
“Would Strang know what room the call was coming from?” Frank asked the professor.
Darrow looked at the boys unhappily. “Yes. My phone line evidently is tapped—perhaps a signal device warns Strang when I lift the receiver. Sometimes when I’d attempt to make an outside call, he would cut me off. His excuse was that he was keeping me safe from detection by foreign spies.”
“Come on!” Joe broke in. “Run for it!”
Darrow made no effort to escape, but the Hardys darted down the corridor toward the back stairs. Strang, Barney, and another henchman already were on their way up. Frank and Joe fled toward the front of the mansion, only to find Hirff and two others dashing up the front stairs.
“Into the lab!” Frank urged. “We’ll try the window—maybe we can slide down the drain-pipe!”
The boys hastily retreated to the laboratory. They were just flinging up the window sash when the criminals burst through the door and aimed two small, portable ray guns at them.
“Hold it or we’ll freeze you stiffer than iced mackerels!” Strang shouted as the boys turned to confront their captors. “These little rods we’re holding are miniature models of that fancy gadget the prof used on you before. We’ve found them extremely handy on jewel heists.”
“Please!” Darrow protested weakly. “These boys have done you no harm. Let them go. Perhaps they’ll agree not to turn you in.”
“Shut up, you sap!” Strang’s voice cracked like a whiplash. “You’re in this as deep as any of us! Do you think we can let these kids go now, knowing all about our racket?”
Darrow shrank back as Strang proceeded to jeer at him.
“I conned you from the start, you egghead! Did you really think I’d sink good money into this setup just so you could develop these blackout guns for national defense? And you swallowed all that junk about spies.
“What you were really doing here, Darrow, was getting us ready for the biggest jewel-theft operation in history. Those purple tear-gas grenades you cooked up were an extra bonus!”
Strang’s henchmen roared with laughter. Their response spurred him to greater boasting and he answered Frank’s and Joe’s questions freely. The first hint that the Hardys might be on his trail had come when the boys had followed him in his car.
The ghostly screams had warned the gang t
hat someone was prowling near their tunnel exit, so next morning they had camouflaged the tiled floor with sod and brush. In doing so, they had found the jackknife bearing Frank’s name. Then later, one of the men had used the exit and had left the tiles uncovered. When Strang had found Frank’s pocketknife, he thought the Hardys had seen the floor.
Knowing from newspaper accounts of their earlier cases that the boys owned a boat, Strang had ordered two of his men to sabotage it. “I figured then it was time to scare you punks off or get rid of you for good,” Strang went on. The brothers had escaped with their lives—but later, when the Napoli had happened to anchor near the Seacat, one of the gang, known as Moose, had attacked Joe in the bay.
As the Hardys had suspected, Strang had sent two of his men, Kelso and Trigger, to Chicago to pull the Spyker robbery, after telephoning a false clue to Mr. Hardy.
Strang had arranged to be aboard the chartered plane at the time of the robbery, in order to establish an alibi in case he was charged with the theft. He had arrived in Chicago in time to organize the transfer of the loot, stowing it in a secret compartment of Hirff’s plane and later taking it to the Perth mansion hideout.
Kelso and Trigger had gone to Gary, Indiana, to plant the decoy getaway car, then returned to Bayport by commercial airliner.
“How did Makin happen to be at the airport the night of the robbery?” Frank asked.
“He trailed Waxie, who was waiting for me to fly in from Chicago. But he didn’t wait long before Makin jumped him, and made him unlock Hirff’s hangar so he could search it.
“Then he took Waxie back to the car and found the amethysts in the glove compartment. He knocked Waxie out and was going to leave him there, unconscious, as a warning that we should cut him in. But when you kids and that private eye showed up and spotted him, Makin took off. And when I came in, I had to leave the loot in Hirff’s plane and take a taxi back to the mansion.”
The gang had rented the cabin at Tigers’ Bight as an emergency hideout, intending to flee there in their cruiser if the police should close in. Jack Wayne had been taken there by Barney after he had contacted the Seacat by radio.
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